Offshore Outsourcing

Employers have duties under health and safety law to assess risks in the workplace. Risk assessments should be carried out that address all risks that might cause harm in the workplace. Employers must give employees information about the risks in their workplace and how they are protected, also instruct and train their employees on how to deal with the risks. Employers must consult employees on health and safety issues. Consultation must be either direct or through a safety representative that is either elected by the workforce or appointed by a trade union. It is an employees duty to take reasonable care of their own health and safety. If possible avoid wearing jewellery or loose clothing if operating machinery. If the employee has long hair or wears a headscarf, make sure it's tucked out of the way (it could get caught in machinery). To take reasonable care not to put other people such as fellow employees and members of the public at risk by what they do or don't do in the course of their work. To co-operate with the employer, making sure the employee gets proper training and the employee understands and follows the company's health and safety policies. Not to interfere with or misuse anything that's been provided for their health, safety or welfare. To report any injuries, strains or illnesses they suffer as a result of doing their job (the employer may need to change the way they work). To tell their employer if something

‘It is an employer's duty to protect the health, safety and welfare of their employees and other people who might be affected by their business. Employers must do whatever is reasonably practicable to achieve this.’

The U.S. economy has seen many hardships within the last decade. The economy has suffered from a recession that is still threatening to cripple some Americans and unemployment has been at an all time high. People have lost homes and jobs and many businesses have gone bankrupt simply trying to survive. However, in the midst of this economic crisis some companies have managed to survive. Many companies, approximately 36% of them, have found a way to avoid economic collapse by cutting costs (Job Outsourcing Statistics, 2014). One of the most popular cost reducing strategies of our time is called outsourcing.

Section 3-8 SEA and Section 12(a) OHS outlines the general duties of an employer. Section 3-8(a) explains the employer’s responsibility to ensure a safe place of work for all employees (SEA). The employer, Tosi Industries, is not diligent in promoting a safe work environment. An example is shown by the pay-for-performance structure, which encourages productivity over safety (Tucker, 2008). This has a negative effect on workplace safety as employees are rewarded with team bonuses for high production levels, regardless of the safety costs. Tosi’s workplace environment encourages unsafe shortcuts and working conditions, an underreporting of injuries, and use of dangerous machines to meet high production levels. As a result, the employer is not ensuring the health, safety and welfare of employees in the workplace.

Employers must ensure the health and safety of employees at work and other people on the premises.

“Outsourcing refers to the practice of contracting workers outside of a company or business for work duties or services previously performed by company employees or “in-house”. This practice is also often referred to as offshoring due to the increasingly prevalent use of “non-U.S.” service providers for these outsourced duties. However, strictly speaking, outsourcing can and does refer to the use of contracted labor provided by individuals outside of an organization, but still within the U.S.; whereas when these same services are provided outside the U.S., it is both outsourcing and offshoring.”

What are the true reasons that companies are doing business around the world and outsourcing American jobs to other countries? Mainly, American jobs such as Accountants, Technicians and Programmers are losing their Jobs because of globalization. Most of American jobs are outsource to countries such as China or India, therefore, before this taken place Americans had more of a better stable career path or even more jobs to choose from eventually, times have changes very rapidly due to companies moving American jobs overseas. As stated by many politicans, executives, prominent corporate executives and academics “have argued that we have no choice, that with globalization it’s critical to tap the lower costs and unique skills of labor abroad to

Outsourcing is the process of “hiring foreign workers to do a particular task, as opposed to hiring indigenous workers” (fee.org). Although it may seem like a favorable business approach, it only provides a gain out to large corporations. Since outsourcing is assembled around extensive cooperation’s, it steals from the “mom&pap” stores.

According to Investopedia, outsourcing is “a practice used by different companies to reduce costs by transferring portions of work to outside suppliers rather than completing it internally” (Investopedia, n.d). Companies use outsourcing to reduce costs and improve productivity. In the 1970’s and 1980’s was when companies first began looking for alternatives to increase their profits and increase the production of their products (Narayanan, 2015). Products were becoming to expensive to make in the United States and other lesser developed countries were less expensive, and that is why the United States turned to China for production. There are lots of other reasons for outsourcing such as gaining access to new markets, gaining global knowledge, focusing on their core business practices, and being closer to their resources. Gaining access to new markets happens because the company is moving production abroad, and they are in a whole new area. When they begin production in this area, the people of that country are opened up to that new idea. Also gaining global knowledge is very similar to gaining access to new markets. With the company being in a new country they learn a lot about that country. They need to learn practices, customs, language, etc. If that company doesn’t learn customs, beliefs, or practices then they can offend the citizens of that country, and then their company will not be as successful. If a company decides to outsource, they also can focus on their core

Mark Anner, Associate Professor of Labor and Employment Relations at the Pennsylvania State University, has written perhaps the most persuasive piece of literature on the reasons for the lack of progress in workers’ rights for employees of independent contractors hired in the process of an American corporation outsourcing to another nation. Before the Rana Plaza Factory Fire in 2012 and currently still, most of the CSR models focused on voluntary codes of conduct which allowed corporations to adopt for publicity purposes, yet not fulfill the responsibilities of those agreements, without facing any consequences. These programs of CSR are extremely unsuccessful, as most factories and independent contractors cut corners to pass inspections

Outsourcing is a severely underestimated threat to the United States’ economy, which may eventually lead to our next financial crisis. Damages from outsourcing span throughout all levels of the US economy, although the effects of outsourcing are especially devastating to those of the lower class. The threats presented by outsourcing are acknowledged by both of the major presidential candidates: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. In order to prevent the next financial crisis, we must take immediate action.

Employees have a duty to take reasonable care and to avoid causing harm to others and must follow safe working practices and actively promote safe working conditions.

The decision to outsource or off-shore key business operations, in an effort to maximize integral value-chain activity (Sanders, 2009), weighs heavily on any American company as it grows and progresses through an archetypal life cycle. Leadership must consider whether the value of current employees and status-quo operations is advantageous to saving labor costs and hiring outside the company. While discounting current human capital within a company may save labor costs by outsourcing or hiring fresh in lieu of promoting, American companies should be slower to replace American employees because of the synergies that in their current employees, while employee longevity with the company saves the company the recruiting and retention

Each company will try to pursue their supply chain to supports their competitive priorities and it will involve outsourcing at least for the initial input of their processes from other companies (Krajewski et al., 2016). Increasingly, the companies are no longer just outsourcing basic support, but they are outsourcing activities integral to their operations, including such things as, customer sales and support, information technology, integrated product design and manufacturing, logistics, human resources and financial functions. Sometimes, the activities being performed by the outsider are replacing in-house operations. In other cases, they are new activities tied to the company 's business growth and new markets. As organizations outsource more and more of their operations, it is the relationship itself that becomes the new strategic asset. Outsourcing relationships demand the same care and attention to sound management principles and practices as do in-house operations and valued employees. Managed well, continuous improvement, increasing value, and constant innovation can be expected. Managed poorly, the services and overall relationship deteriorates resulting in higher costs, operational disruption and lost business opportunities.

Ronald's dilemma highlights one of the challenges of outsourcing any aspect of the production process. Every company has its own quality standards, and when entering into a relationship with another company, the parent organization needs to make sure that there is mutual harmony and understanding about what those standards are and how they will be fulfilled. From the perspective of the Placido Engine Company, is it in its interest to ensure that customers are happy, and that there are zero defects in its products. If products are defective, it will lose customers, and given the nature of the product, Placido could even face lawsuits if users are injured.